Authorities: Travel Agency Pulled Scam

Joanna Deberardino believed she was getting a great deal when a Central Florida travel agency sold her a hotel-and-cruise package to Orlando in 2003.

Deberardino, a 22-year-old Texas resident, authorized a $500 bank withdrawal after answering a faxed ad by Sunny Sky Travel Inc. of Fern Park. The ad promised several nights in Orlando and a Walt Disney World cruise trip.

But it was all a scam, according to a federal investigation.

"I pretty much got ripped off," said Deberardino, one of at least 845 victims nationwide allegedly scammed by employees of Sunny Sky Travel. "They lied to me, saying I was going to get a travel package, and I never got it."

Three travel-agency workers who solicited clients out of an office suite at 7800 S. U.S. 17-92 have been charged in Orlando's federal court with fraud. A fourth was charged with failure to report a crime.

Luke Amoresano, the agency's former manager; treasurer Rebecca Zangwill; and employee Kacy Laray Wright are accused of illegally using information about customers' bank accounts to print and deposit forged checks. Their scheme netted close to $167,000 during a 12-day period in summer 2003, according to the charges. Laura Bray, meanwhile, faces a count of withholding information about a crime.

"Obviously, it was a deal too good to be true," Deberardino said in a telephone interview from Austin, Texas. "They offered me a vacation package. When I called to redeem my package, their number was disconnected."

When she got a follow-up letter in the mail, she said she contacted the agency and was told she needed to pay additional fees to process her vacation package.

"I had to close out my bank accounts. . .They probably got close to $1,000," Deberardino said. "They started draining my account periodically."

According to court documents, the travel-agency workers obtained bank-account numbers from would-be tourists, then called their banks to verify the availability of funds. Then the scammers would print forged checks and continue to tap funds illegally from the victims' accounts.

Zangwill -- who was arrested in New York City last month -- pleaded not guilty Wednesday at her arraignment in front of Magistrate Karla R. Spaulding in Orlando's federal court. Zangwill, 30, is free on bail pending her trial, which has been tentatively scheduled for early May.

Bray, 29, Wright, 28, and Amoresano, 30, have reached plea agreements and await sentencing hearings in April and May.

Amoresano, meanwhile, is in New York facing felony drug charges being investigated by that state Attorney General's Office. New York officials, reached Wednesday, did not have details, but records show the former Altamonte Springs resident was arrested in January on a New York warrant.

Sophie Thomas-Campfield, a regulatory consultant with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in Tallahassee, said the state agency logged 21 complaints against Sunny Sky Travel during its one-year stint as a seller of travel services. Seventeen came after the company had gone out of business, Thomas-Campfield said.

The company's registration expired March 5, 2004, a year after it was first licensed.

The Better Business Bureau's Central Florida office in Altamonte Springs also documented the company's practices starting in April 2003.

"This company has an unsatisfactory record with the bureau due to unanswered complaints," says a BBB report. "This company has a recent pattern of complaints concerning unauthorized fees withdrawn from banking accounts.''

Sunny Sky's president, Javier A. Vargas of Orlando, did not return phone calls, but authorities do not think anyone else was involved in the scheme.

Deberardino, a clothing-store manager, said she has learned her lesson about vacation deals that sound too good to be true.

"I should have known it was a scam. I was dumb," she said. "It only takes me one time to be taken for."